


Remnants of the Collision

by voleuse



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-14
Updated: 2005-10-14
Packaged: 2017-10-04 10:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>They ask me, "Could this have gone unnoticed or untold?"</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Remnants of the Collision

**Author's Note:**

> Set during a War, no spoilers. Title and summary taken from Margaux Poueymirou's _The Myth of Playa De Oro_.

Their journey begins in a dank corner of the Ministry library.

Hermione finds a reference to an artifact, ancient and powerful, something that can bring an end, or perhaps a beginning.

The Order doesn't have many members to spare on an expedition funded by conjecture. There are too many dying, every day, that need their help.

The unending deaths, Hermione argues, are exactly the reason they should pursue the artifact. If it can bring an end to the war, or even a momentary pause, it's worth the expenditure.

She volunteers to seek the artifact herself, but it's not so much volunteering as a statement of fact. She's going, and they can't stop her.

When George says he'll come along with her, she blinks. But no one tells him nay.

*

 

They Apparate in fits and starts, to the edge of the country, then cross the Channel on a Muggle ferry. They take a coach across the countryside, skip to another continent using a contraband flying carpet.

One night, as they skim through a dry desert night, Hermione looks over at George. While she has her fingers dug into the threads of the carpet, he's leaning forward, ducking his head under it to get a better view of the land.

"George," she asks, "why did you come with me?"

He shrugs, sends her an elegant and hollow grin. "Seemed like the thing to do."

She watches him closely for another moment, and his gaze falters and swings back to the stars.

*

 

They don't know, exactly, what they need to find, or where they need to go.

George looks askance at her scribbled notes, the jottings of ink that describe a meeting of sand and sky and sea. A glint of power, and gold, and time condensed to honey.

"Seems like," he observes, "whoever wrote your book might have included more specific directions."

"Like a map?" she asks, and he almost laughs at that.

She wishes he would laugh.

Instead, as the days beat down on their pale skin, George devises a ward that will shield them from the sun's rays.

She compliments him on the ingenuity, admires the structure of the spell.

"We worked on something like it, before," he explains, and his lips tighten into a thin line.

*

 

They take rest under the scant branches of an acacia tree. The night is warm enough, and Hermione draws a circle of salt around their encampment.

She chucks dried bits of bark into their small cooking fire. "Do you wish you were back home?" she asks. "Fighting?"

"Yeah," he says. His eyes don't blink as he stares into the flames. "No," he amends.

She twists her fingers into knots, and doesn't look at him as she lays down.

They neither talk nor sleep that night.

*

 

They travel until they reach the shore, a harsh clash of wave and wind.

"It's here," she says with certainty. "Can you feel it? The hum?" But George doesn't answer her.

He stares into the sea, and the salt spray stings her eyes.


End file.
